Beautiful Noise
by CherriesAndGarlic
Summary: They were leaning in, closer and closer…his face was inches from hers… "No," Ally whispered. "No no no! This is not happening again!" "I'm sorry," Austin said quietly. "I didn't mean—" "No, it's not you. It's that when you do that…I feel that spark all over again." AustinxAlly. Enjoy :D
1. A Little Girl Hurt by the Big Bad World

They were leaning in, closer and closer…his face was inches from hers…

"No," Ally whispered. "No no no! This is not happening again!"

"I'm sorry," Austin said quietly. "I didn't mean—"

"No, it's not you. It's that when you do that…I feel that spark all over again."

* * *

**I want to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, or favorited any of my stories. It really means a lot to me and all of you make my day. This story is dedicated to you. THANK YOU! **

**Anyway, this story will be post-Auslly breakup and possibly multi-chapter. It was inspired by two songs: Taylor Swift's ****_Red_****, and Bridget Mendler's ****_Hurricane, _****so I suggest you listen to those songs if you haven't already, as they set the mood for this story nicely. **

**I've seen some authors out there who make you earn your chapters in reviews, so I'll be stealing that from you if you're one of them and reading this. Thanks for that! And now, without further ado…**

**Oh, right. Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. That's all I have to say.**

**And now…**

* * *

The bright morning sun rose over Miami, breaking through the thin yellow curtains that fluttered in front of Ally's window and on to her face. She cracked open an eye and groaned, rolling over and burying her head under her pillow.

It took her a few seconds to realize that she was suffocating herself.

She violently threw aside the covers, stomped to the window, and pulled the curtains shut. "Go away, sun," she muttered angrily, curling back up under the covers. She let out a satisfied sigh as the sun stopped bothering her.

It was three minutes before she became aware of a songbird, loudly twittering away. To say it was annoying was an understatement; Ally found it _troublesome_ and _bad_. "SHUT UP!" she yelled. She couldn't even see the poor thing.

A string of curse words gushed out of her mouth like a river as she started towards the window, her eyes darting around her room in search of something to throw at it. An extra _crap! _escaped her lips when she realized that it wasn't a real bird she was hearing; it was the stupid nature alarm clock Dez had given her for Christmas last year.

She sank to her knees in the middle of her room. "Why, Dez, why?" she wailed at the ceiling. She just wanted to _sleep;_ was that such a crime?

She sat there for a few minutes, wallowing in self-pity, before dragging herself to her feet. Alarm clocks didn't lie; her shift at Sonic Boom started in and hour and she had to make herself look pretty.

Oh, how she hated Saturdays.

* * *

Austin didn't say much that morning.

He didn't mutter while he searched his room for clean clothing. He didn't curse when he found that he was out of toothpaste. He didn't thank his mother for the stack of fluffy pancakes sitting on the kitchen table when he came downstairs.

"Good morning, son," Mike Moon said cheerfully, looking up from his newspaper. "How'd you sleep?"

Austin shrugged and pulled up a chair. He stared at the pancakes, but he didn't dig in; they didn't look as delicious as they usually did. Instead he fiddled around aimlessly with the fork in his hand.

"Sweetie," Mimi Moon said quietly, "the pancakes are getting cold, and you promised Ally you would meet her at Sonic Boom in half an hour, remember?"

"Ally," Austin repeated meekly.

Mike looked helplessly at his wife. She quietly sat down next to her son and rubbed his shoulder. "I know," she said in a soothing voice. "It's hard. But—"

"You've got to get over her," Mike cut in. He leaned across the table and touched Austin's hand. "You can't stay hung up on one girl forever. You and Ally…you had something, but that something disappeared. And now there's no point in even trying."

Austin glared at him and freed himself from his parents' touches, tearing up the stairs.

"Mike!" Mimi scolded. "That was a very insensitive thing to say!"

"It's the truth," Mike replied, helping himself to Austin's untouched pancakes. "He's got to know."

"He _does_ know, but even so…it's tough for him, Mike. I think he really loved her. And it still hurts him inside."

Mike shrugged and shoveled another bite into his mouth before returning to his newspaper.

* * *

_"I don't wanna talk about the things we've gone through,"_ Ally sang quietly as she rummaged through a pile of sheet music. _"Though it's hurting me, now it's history…"_

The practice room felt strangely empty. Dez was sick, Trish had a job she actually cared about, and Austin…today would be an awkward day to talk to Austin. Besides, she wanted to be alone. She wanted to sit in the practice room all day, watching TV and listening to breakup songs while eating a tub of ice cream and crying. Yes, that sounded like an ideal day, except for the crying part; but she had a feeling that was going to happen anyway.

She was getting ready to do just that when the door opened. She looked up, the last words of the song she was singing floating from her lips. _"But you see, the winner takes it all*…_oh, hey Austin."

"Hi," he said, quietly closing the door behind him. He twiddled his thumbs and looked down at the floor. "We were going to practice today, but if you're busy…"

Ally mentally smacked herself on the forehead. "Right," she replied. How could she have forgotten? "Let's go do that, then." She usually looked forward to her practice sessions with Austin. She liked the feeling of her shoulder pressed against his, and the beautiful sound that they made together. But today he was the last person she wanted to see.

She sat down on the piano bench. The black-and-white keys, that usually seemed so full of life and possibilities, today looked dead and bland. There was no spark of motivation that urged her to play and no new song brewing in the back of her head. She still wanted to sleep.

_Sleep_. Oh, how warm and comfortable a bed sounded! She debated jumping up and running back home, but the calm, logical side of her reminded her that she couldn't hide from her problems forever. She took a deep breath and turned to look Austin, who had slid in next to her, in the eye.

She hadn't counted on the extremely small space between his face and hers.

They both froze, eyes locked. Ally saw his mouth open slightly, as if he wanted to say something to her, and she could feel his warm, minty breath on her cheeks. It made her wonder how his breath, each and every day, smelled so freaking minty.

"Ally…" he began quietly.

"No," she replied shortly. She turned away from him, laying her hands down on the piano keys, debating what to play. A breakup song? A heartache song? A complicated piece to show Austin that, despite his endless prayers, she was and always would be a _much_ better piano player than him? No. None of that seemed right.

Her entire life, Ally had always easily been able to communicate her feelings through her music. To her, every piano key was a word, every melody a sentence, every song a story. She could pick out just the right ones to let everyone know how she felt. It was as natural as talking.

But today, the keys looked like nothing more than a repetitive sequence of black and white, blurry and far away; like waking up in the morning and trying to remember a dream, but finding that the memory is just out of reach. She felt tears prick her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away. Today was not a day that Austin was going to see her cry.

"Ally?" Austin's voice drowned out her thoughts. "Ally, the song?"

The song. Right.

But no matter how hard she tried, no matter how long her hands hovered over the piano, she couldn't bring herself to play it. She shook her head, trying to clear it of all her thoughts so she could focus on the piano.

"I can't do it," she mumbled quietly.

"What?" Austin said. "Why not?"

"I just can't, okay?" She turned away from him and angrily crossed her arms over her chest. "There are some days when I just can't successfully do everything I'd like to. My life isn't a gold star like yours." She couldn't see him, but she knew those words stung his insides. He hated to feel superior to his friends.

She didn't dare glance at him. There was a bubble of awkwardness floating around them, and if she popped it, her triumphant moment would be ruined. She wanted him to feel bad, guilty even, about what he had done to her, she wanted him to realize that he was a complete blockhead, even though a dark, remote part of her, though she would never admit it, wanted him to spin her around and kiss her and tell her he wanted her back as much as she wanted him. But Ally pushed that thought back to where it came from.

"Ally, come on." She heard his voice break through her web of thoughts. She knew he was sorry, but that wasn't enough; she wanted to make him pay, and that was the moment that she vowed to never cave in to Austin Moon again.

And the result of this vow was that the song she played was not the one she'd been planning to.

_"Loving him was like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street…" _

Her fingers dug into the keys, but only long, melancholy chords escaped them; she didn't bother with the intricate string of notes she'd come up with the evening before. Right now she wanted him to hear her words, to hear that he was nothing but a disappointment and an illusion, nothing but a blonde let-down.

_"Losing him was blue like I'd never know, missing him was dark grey, all alone, forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met,"_ she sang, confidence bubbling with every word. She took a deep breath and prepared for the harsh punchline of her joke. _"But loving him was red…*"_

She looked over at him as her last chord stopped ringing, but the heartbroken look on his face was enough to make her wish she hadn't.

"Ally…" he said quietly, his words barely loud enough for her to hear, "there's no reason why today has to be awkward." He looked down at his hands.

"No reason?" Ally repeated. Anger flared inside her, and she debated driving it back to where it came from and keeping her cool, but no: she was done. Done pretending everything was okay, done pretending it didn't hurt her, done pretending like none of it mattered anymore. Instead, she let the smoldering coals rise into a flame that licked her throat, charring her very insides._ "No reason?"_

Angrily she stood up from the piano bench, a disappointed look of disbelief flickering across her eyes. "Austin, there's _every_ reason why today should be awkward. Do you know what I wanted to do today? I was going to sit and cry until you showed up, but no, I pretended like I was fine. I've been pretending I'm fine for the past _year_, and I'm tired of it!" She stared him down, daring him to make eye contact. When he didn't respond, she continued yelling.

"Today _hurts_, Austin, today brings back so many awful memories for me, do you know that? Do you know why? Do you know what today_ is_?"

Her voice cracked and she found new tears welling in her eyes. A deaf silence suddenly descended on the room as she stopped shouting. She flopped down in a chair, exhausted from her rant, every last bit of energy spent on desperately trying to keep her body from racking with sobs.

"I do know what today is."

In any other situation, Austin's voice would have sounded quiet, but under the soundless blanket it was unbearably loud in Ally's ears, like an unexpected clap of thunder that shattered the constant _patter patter_ of rain on a roof. She looked up at him, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Then why are you acting like you don't care?"

"I do care, Ally, I really do." He sat down in the chair across from her. "I just…I can't communicate my feelings, you know that. If I could I would have told you that a long time ago." He maintained shaky, but still present, eye contact with her. "I think you know that too."

It took Ally a long time to decide how to react. Finally, her voice still slightly watery from crying, she whispered, "Tell me. Prove to me that you know what today is."

He sighed. She knew him well enough to know that there were tears threatening to break past his eyes too. When he spoke, his words were barely a whisper."Today, we've been broken up for exactly a year."

* * *

**Oh, touchy touchy subject, isn't it? Well, that was chapter one of ****_Beautiful Noise_**** :) I sincerely hope you enjoyed it and I sincerely hope you'll review. Thanks! **

*** The first song Ally sings is ****_The Winner Takes It All_**** by ABBA. Don't own it.**

**** The second one is ****_Red_**** by Taylor Swift. Don't own this either.**

**I'll make a deal with you: If I get 6 reviews on this, the next chapter will be posted. If not, ****_Beautiful Noise_**** will forever remain a one shot ;)**

**~Mia**


	2. Every Time He Smiles

**THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH! When I read your reviews my day went from :-I to :-D! This chapter is slightly shorter, hope you don't mind!**

**So basically, the chapters will be told from mostly Ally's point of view, with a dash of Austin here and there. Just a heads-up! Cool.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize, e.g songs, brands, people, characters, places etc.**

* * *

"And he had the _nerve_ to act like he didn't care!" Ally angrily shoveled another half-molten scoop of Fruity Mint Swirl into her mouth. "That _jerk!"_

She and Trish sat on the floor of the practice room, in their pajamas, the door locked, sharing a tub of ice cream. It was the day Ally had wanted to have yesterday; she had already gone through three rounds of full-out tears and she felt considerably better.

Her emotions had been a roller coaster ride that day. She had come to Sonic Boom in tears, got angry, cried, felt better, and cried some more. Trish joked about going through three boxes of tissues (Ally didn't really find it funny but laughed anyway).

The two girls sat in silence for a minute or two, both lost in their own thoughts. It wasn't the awkward, fragile silence Ally had experienced with Austin the day before; it was a welcoming silence, warm and comfortable, like a crackling flame in the fireplace on a snowy winter day. She wished there was a fireplace in the practice room. Outside the window, palm trees swayed in the hard wind as rain danced through the cloudy sky, creating almost unbearably cold temperatures for a girl used to the Miami warmth. Ally shuddered and pulled the fleece blanket she was wrapped in tighter around her shoulders.

"Ally?" Trish said suddenly in a thoughtful tone. "What exactly happened when you and Austin broke up?"

"Huh?" Ally said. She had thought it was a question Trish understood to avoid, but apparently not. She twiddled her thumbs, trying to find the right words for her answer. Finally she spoke.

"He hurt me, Trish. He really hurt me and…I don't know, I just cared about him a lot and in a way…that just made it worse."

"That's not an answer to my question," Trish replied stubbornly.

Ally sighed. She had been trying to avoid talking about this for a year, but she knew she'd have to tell Trish eventually. This question was like a dead-end street; you could keep running down it until you reached the end, but no matter how much you stalled, you'd always get there eventually.

She debated lying to Trish, but no: Honesty was its own reward. Besides, they were best friends. Trish deserved to know.

"Alright," Ally said quietly. "I'll tell you." She was ashamed to say that there were already tears gathering behind her eyes, and she hadn't even started telling the story. She sniffled, trying to keep her emotions in check.

"It was the night of our eighteenth date," she began. Memories flooded into her brain as she recalled what had happened exactly a year and a day ago. "We…we were sitting in a booth at a semi-fancy restaurant, him in his neat shirt and me in my favorite dress, and it was all going fine." She began fiddling with her hair, trying to resist the urge of chewing on it. She was fighting a war now, throwing all her strength at her tears, trying to drive them away. Shakily she continued.

"And then…he—he left for the bathroom and he didn't come back so…I went to find him and…I saw him…" Ally's walls broke down and tears started to drizzle down her cheeks. She collapsed into a big pile of blankets and pillows, sobbing like a small child after a bad dream.

"And then?" Trish encouraged. "What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Ally mumbled as she wiped at her eyes with the corner of her blanket. "Let's just…let's just watch a movie, okay?"

Ignoring Ally's movie suggestion, Trish scooted closer to her best friend, gently rubbing her back with the palm of her hand. "It's going to be okay," the Latina soothed, stroking her hair. "No matter how dark it gets…you'll always find light again. You're not a giver-upper, Ally." The brunette looked up at her with unconvinced eyes, slightly bloodshot from tears. "I promise," Trish added, a gentle smile curving her lips, earning her a watery one in return.

"So," Ally said, trying to make her voice sound strong, "what movie?"

"A chick flick?" Trish suggested. Ally grinned and nodded. "Which one?"

"How about…" Ally switched on their Netflix and scrolled through the romance movies. _"The Notebook?"_

"We've watched that too often already."

"Okay…_The Wedding Planner?"_

"Too sappy."

_"You've Got Mail?"_

"That's a Christmas movie."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is. It's always on during the holidays."

"Fine…_The Devil Wears Prada*?"_

"Sure, why not?"

Ally smiled and hit play. She loved this movie. Fifteen minutes in, all thoughts of Austin and her tears and their break-up anniversary had all flown from her mind, out of the window, and into the pelting rain of the storm. She relaxed into her blankets and pillows and, with another scoop of Fruity Mint Swirl, she finally felt better.

* * *

"Why am I such an idiot?" Austin moaned.

"I dunno, why are you?" Dez replied. His thumbs were a blur of movement on the controller of the video game they were playing. Austin was really doing his best to win, but he just couldn't; his thoughts kept floating back to Ally and her rant. Part of him wished he had never shown up to practice; part of him knew he deserved it; but the rest of him, a tiny, dark sliver of him, wanted Ally to change her mind and take him back. But he knew _that_ would never happen again. Not in a million years.

"Austin, you're losing," Dez shattered his thoughts. At the solemn look on his friend's face, he added, "Dude, are you okay?"

"Yeah…I'm fine…" Dez raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, here's the thing," Austin said. "You know how yesterday was me and Ally's break up anniversary? Well, we had practice, but I guess she was in a bad mood because she yelled at me for being an insensitive jerk who doesn't care about her feelings, or even about her." Austin ran his fingers through his untamed hair. "But I just…Dez, I…I want her to love me that way again. And I know it's wrong, and I don't deserve her, but…I guess I'm…"

"Not over her?" Dez finished. Austin bit his lip and nodded. "Well…you've got to put yourself in her shoes."

"Meaning?"

"How do you think she feels, Austin? She's got a broken heart, and she feels like you don't care." Dez leaned over and touched his best friend's shoulder. "You need to let her know how you feel."

"I can't." Austin reached up and grabbed a fistful of his beach blonde locks, tugging on them in frustration. "She _hates_ me."

"If she hated you, do you think she would have reacted to you the way she did?"

"I—"

"People are only hurt by the ones they care most about," Dez went on, launching into full _I'm-going-to-show-you-how-you-feel_ mode. "That's why she's hurting, Austin. Because she loves you—and that's why you're hurting too."

"I'm _not_ hurting," he replied stubbornly. In the back of his mind, Austin knew that what his friend was saying was true, but the arrogant teenager inside him refused to believe it. There was no way, _no way_ that a girl—a weak, shy, awkward girl who wouldn't let go of an incorrect assumption she had made one night—could make him, _the_ Austin Moon, feel so vulnerable.

No way.

* * *

_Dear Songbook,_

_My head hurts, my feet hurt, my hands hurt, my heart hurts. I'm hurting. Why, you ask? Austin Moon is why. It's just so complicated with him, and I can't make up my mind. I want to hate him, I really do, I want to throw him away and shut him out, but it's like every time he smiles…I let him in again.** Hey, that's kinda good! I wonder if I can work that into a song…_

_Oh crap, here he comes. _

_Always,_

_Ally_

* * *

Ally snapped her songbook shut and set it down on the Sonic Boom counter, gently running her hand over over the worn leather as she did so. She loved her book; it had been a gift from her mother when she had left to study for the first time, in Brazil. Ally had been a complicated little eleven-year-old back then; she was no good at figuring out how she felt, let alone letting the people around her know.

"So you can write down your thoughts and feelings," Penny had said as she presented her with the book at the airport. Gently stroking her daughter's curls, she had added, in a soothing tone, "It's only six months, my little Ally-gator. I'll be back before you know it."

"But six months is _forever," _Ally had protested, not wanting to let go of her mother. "You won't be there for the first day of school, or Dad's birthday, or picture day, or—"

"Shh," Penny had cut her off, placing a finger to her daughter's lips. "Just hold on to that book, okay? You'll feel better. I promise." She had placed one last kiss to Ally's forehead before picking up the suitcase that lay abandoned on the airport floor and walking towards the gate, a slender hand waving goodbye.

It was hard to believe that it was still the same book; the pages had been neat and perfectly aligned with each other back then, and the cover had still been clean, the edges smooth. Now it was tattered, ragged, the paper wrinkled from being wet, the leather worn, and crammed full of writing.

But none of that mattered at the moment, because Austin Moon was standing in front of her with an expectant look on his face.

At first Ally refused to make eye contact. She never wanted to see that cursed shade of hazel ever again, never wanted to lose herself in them again, never wanted them to seek out hers ever again. Finally, though, she looked up.

Hazel eyes locked with chocolate ones and Ally's world collapsed around her shoulders, crumbling away to big pile of rubble and nothingness.

* * *

**Chapter two! Thank you again for all the reviews you gave me, they totally made my day and it just means so much to me :D**

***I can't take credit for any of these movies, unfortunately.**

****A line from ****_Hurricane_**** by Bridgit Mendler. Ally will make up a line from this song in every chapter from now on.**

**Please note that I'm not one of those talented people who can write an amazing chapter in two hours. I will try to update as soon as I can, probably around every 1-2 weeks.**

**Keep the reviews comin', let's aim for…hmm, how about 8 for the next chapter? Can you do that? I bet you can :)**

**~Mia**


	3. Twisting Up My Insides

**Oh my Raura. You guys didn't give me 8 new reviews. You gave me a flippin 13! And I know that's not a lot to you people who have like 500 reviews per story, but it just makes me SO HAPPY. EVERY SINGLE ONE. OH MY GOD. FLIPPING OUT!**

**Anyway, my update day will from now on be FRIDAY. There will be a new chapter up every one OR two weeks, no set date. Just Friday. Simple enough, right? Updating this often means that chapters will be slightly shorter, so please keep that in mind.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Austin & Ally or ****_Hurricane_**** by Bridgit Mendler. Okay? Cool.**

* * *

Last time on_ Beautiful Noise _(don't worry, I won't do these every chapter):

_At first Ally refused to make eye contact. She never wanted to see that cursed shade of hazel ever again, never wanted to lose herself in them again, never wanted them to seek out hers ever again. Finally, though, she looked up. _

_Hazel eyes locked with chocolate ones and Ally's world collapsed around her shoulders, crumbling away to big pile of rubble and nothingness._

* * *

"Hi," Ally said awkwardly. She looked away from Austin. Instinctively, she began to reach up for a curl of hair to chew on, but she stopped herself; she was cool now, confident. Grown up. How often had she seen a grownup chew on hair? Never.

Biting her lip, she cautiously stole another glance at him, wondering what was rolling through his mind. Was it the same mess of thoughts she was thinking? Or was it something completely different? Sighing, she shook those questions away; she had no right to know what filled his brain, and he had no right to know about hers.

"Ally?"

She barely registered the sound of her name leaving his lips. His lips. So…soft…warm…kissable…

_Stop that,_ she told herself sternly. There was absolutely no reason to be thinking about something as wrong as kissing Austin; he wasn't eligible for kissing anyway, because he wasn't a direct family member and he wasn't someone she was dating. He just didn't meet her standards.

Besides, it wasn't like she _wanted_ to kiss him. Right?

"Ally. Earth to Ally." She became vaguely aware of the large, calloused hand that was waving in front if her face, almost hypnotically: up, down, up, down, up, down…

Her mental hand slapped herself. _Focus! _it told her angrily. She did as it told her to, forcing herself to look up at the blonde in front of her. "Yeah, what?"

"Nothing. You zoned out on me." He ran a hand through his hair. Ally noticed that he did that much more often nowadays; she wondered if it was a sign of anxiety or if he simply was becoming more vain.

She twiddled her thumbs in a meek attempt to make the situation less awkward. What was she supposed to say? What did he _want_ her to say?_ "Oh Austin, I love you!"_ or_ "Oh Austin, I'm so deeply sorry for screaming at you! Please forgive me!" _

Finally, without looking up from her hands, she spoke. "I'm sorry I yelled at you the other day." It came out more quietly than she had planned it to; more of a statement than an apology, much like a small be child having to say sorry for breaking his friend's crayon.

"It's okay," Austin replied. Picking at a hangnail, she noticed that he too was trying to make the conversation more casual. Like two good friends, and nothing more; not like two ex-lovers-best-friends. "I know you didn't mean it."

"Yeah." Ally fought to keep her temper down; she had meant every word of her shouted rant, and he knew it. Truth wasn't something to back away from, to duck under, to jump over: truth was something to accept. And she had accepted a long time ago that things had changed between her and Austin and that was just the way it was.

"I'm glad we've cleared that up," Ally said. She gave him a curt nod as if to excuse him before picking up her book and beginning to write again. She thought she had made herself clear, but apparently not; when she looked up, he was still standing there.

She sighed in exasperation. Another thing that she had learned to accept was the fact that boys are stubborn, and Austin was a boy, and that too was never going to change. She tapped her pencil against her book in irritation. Boys never learn. "Please go away," she said in the politest voice she could muster.

"Ally, I…" Austin began, but the brunette cut him off, tearing her eyes away from her book and locking them again with his.

"Get out of my store," she hissed, her voice deathly quiet. Raising an arm, she pointed. "There's the door."

She knew those words broke him. They had a special sort of value; it was one of Ally's first memories of the two of them together. But there was a difference between what was real and what was just a memory, because things had changed and would continue to change because that was how the world worked, and there was nothing either of them could do about it.

The blonde opened his mouth as if to say something, but quickly closed it again. Immediately Ally felt bad; his beautiful hazel eyes were draped with hurt and his eyebrows had furrowed in the way they did when he didn't want to believe something. Tears snuck into her eyes again, but she turned away from him so he couldn't see them drop; picking up her book, she held it in front of her face and continued writing.

After five minutes, she stole a glance over her shoulder. He was gone; but for some reason, she wanted him to come back again. She rubbed her temples in frustration; what was _wrong_ with her? It was like a giant hand was using her thoughts for modeling clay: continuously molding and changing them, keeping her from making up her mind. Like the same hand was twisting up her insides, making her a completely different person. She couldn't hide that on the outside.

A slight smile graved her lips as she picked up her book again_. And it's twisting up my insides, can't hide it on the outside*, _she wrote. Perfect.

* * *

_Clank clunk clank clank!_

Every fiber of Ally's being was currently being wasted on resisting the temptation of plugging her ears as she and Nelson sat shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the piano. Ally had been teaching the small bespectacled boy piano for almost two years, but at every single lesson she wished she could quit; she knew she couldn't, though. She was Nelson's role model.

Nelson Sand** was the kid Ally had once been: dorky, unpopular, a nerd who only had three friends. Her mother had gone to Brazil for two years; his mother had died of cancer. The poor boy had only been five at the time, and he hadn't understood what was happening. His father was left with two kids, one of them being Nelson's little sister Jenna, who had been only a year old.

Just as it had been for Ally, music was really the only thing that kept the nine-year-old intact, and if it was as important to him as it was to her…well, it was her duty to guide him through it. She was the closest thing to a mother Nelson had, and a mother's role was to help her child grow up.

"Ally?" A small finger poked her shoulder and she became aware that the noise had stopped. "Ally, are you there?"

Nelson was looking up at her through the thin lenses of his glasses, which had slid down the bridge if his nose and had come to a rest at the tip. His fingers had left the piano keys; instead they had returned to his lap, where they patiently rested, folded into each other.

"I'm fine." Ally mustered a weak smile. It was nearly painful to spread her lips apart and stretch her cheeks. She wanted them to fall slack again, so she could continue to host a one-person pity-party.

Nelson cocked his head, almost like a confused dog trying to understand her: big, innocent hazel eyes studying her as if through a microscope. His eyes were very nice. They were so deep, and so hazel, almost—she realized with an inner smile—the same shade as Austin's.

_No! _she reminded herself angrily._ Stop thinking about him! _

But no matter how hard she tried, he wouldn't get out of her mind. He was like…like…she tried to think of an insulting metaphor. He was like those stupid aphids that ate up her garden every year. She could spray them and spray them, drench them in bug spray, but they would only come back again the next year as if she had never drove them away and the bug spray would have to come out of the cupboard all over again.

Just as she let out a small groan of frustration, the door of Sonic Boom swung open and and two boys—a blonde one and a tall one—entered, bringing with them the chilly air that lingered after a storm. The rain had stopped falling hours ago, but the wet feeling still remained, the clouds still stretched tight across the sky, threatening to burst loose with another storm.

"Oh, God," she groaned. She grabbed Nelson's shoulders and tried to duck out of sight behind the small boy's back. "Hide me!"

"Why?" he questioned. "It's just Austin and his wacko friend—"

"Hey Nelson." Suddenly Austin was upon them, casually peering over Nelson's shoulder at Ally, who was attempting to fold her body up and become invisible. _Please don't talk to me, please don't talk to me, please don't talk to me, please please plea—_

"Ally."

_Crap_.

"I can see you." She could practically _feel_ his smirk burning into the back of her head as he towered over them. Nelson, who apparently noticed the tension between the two teenagers, quickly leapt up and scuttled away to Dez, not wanting to be caught in the middle of the emotional storm about to break loose. This left Ally awkwardly hunched over and looking like a ridiculous idiot. Why could Austin make her feel so _awkward_ lately?

She had always been an awkward person: it was in her blood. Written in the stars. Set in stone. Whatever she wanted to call it, she was awkward. But Austin…he just made her _feel_ awkward. She knew she was just that way, and she was so used to it that she usually didn't even notice it; only when she was thinking about it or when someone pointed it out. Like right now, for example, she was feeling awkward because Austin was intimidating her and she was in an uncomfortable position, and because she was thinking about being awkward, which only proved the fact that she was generally nothing more but an awkward little girl.

She looked up at the blonde, who, as she had predicted, had a smirk–although it was hiding a smile– etched on his face. Ally's eyes traced over the fine curve of it; it looked so soft. The smirk was sort of…what was the word? Pleasant? Sweet? She drew her lip into her mouth in concentration of defining it. Cute. The smirk was freaking _cute! _She shuddered, angry with herself at the perfect word she had involuntarily come up with. That smirk was going to be the death of her. There she went again. _Awkward_.

"Earth to Ally." Austin's voice drizzled down upon her like a fine mist. Why did he have to be talking to her right now? Could he _not_ see that she was very busy thinking about being awkward and about how adorable his smirk was? _Don't answer, don't, don't, don't_—

"Yeah, what?" Ally. _Stop talking!_

"Do you wanna…go…work on the song for the webcast?" Austin's voice was—if at all possible—hesitant, almost. Like his confidence was finally wavering, bending, but not quite broken.

The words _not really_ fizzed to the tip of her tongue, but she bit them away. She knew it wouldn't be fair to Austin if she refused; wasn't that one of the reasons they had broken up in the first place? Because their relationship was getting in the way of their partnership? And, of course, there were broken hearts and exes involved in the breakup, but that wasn't the point.

"Sure," she said finally, caramel-tipped curls bobbing as she nodded. She stood up and stalked, slightly unwillingly, up the Sonic Boom stairs and into the practice room, Austin close on her heels. She made a point of "accidentally" slamming the door in his face right as he was about to go inside, making him walk straight into it and earning him a quick shock of pain in his forehead. "Oops, sorry," she said, biting back a giggle as she let him inside.

"Not funny," he muttered. The duo disappeared through the door, leaving Dez and Nelson together in the store.

"That was scary," Nelson whispered. "I've never seen Ally like that." He ran a hand through his short sandy curls, adjusting is glasses in the process. Dez couldn't help but smile down at the little boy in front of him. Nelson was so…so pure, so innocent. He had not yet been exposed to the wonders and horrors of the world yet: he had only seen a little sliver of it all, a tiny piece of a puzzle that was much too big for one small boy to complete. He had no idea of what love could make people do, let alone what it could and would do to two stubborn opposites like Austin and Ally. Two people who felt so much for each other, but hadn't learned how to play the game of love yet—only the game of denial.

A grim smile lightly curved Dez's lips as he ruffled Nelson's hair. "Believe me," he told the kid, "I've seen much worse go down."

* * *

**I really don't like how this chapter ended up. I can't believe I wrote an entire thing about being awkward. That is so stupid. Oh well. **

***Again, a line from ****_Hurricane_****.**

****Y'all know Nelson. His last name was never mentioned on the show, so I just made it the same as the actor who portrays him.**

**So yeah. There ya have it. Oh, and could you copy-paste your favorite part of this chapter into a review? I want to know what you guys like. **

**Also, now that I know you guys can do 13 (!) reviews on one chapter, let's shoot for 9 reviews this time, yeah? You can do it, I believe in you! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME GET THESE! I'm begging you. Like, yeah. Mia tired and frustrated ;)**

**~Mia**


	4. Boarding Up My Windows

Hello Fanfiction.

I've been having a really bleh week, so there's a good chance this chapter will suck because I feel dead and boring. I apologize in advance for wasting your time. (teeheehee Trish moment!)

Not much to say today :-|

Disclaimer: I don't own Austin & Ally or Hurricane by Bridgit Mendler.

* * *

"Okay, so for the beginning of the verse I was thinking we could use the C and the D minor chord, oh, and let's add an A minor in there for the fun of it, and for the chorus we could put an F at the end of the progression to give it a bit more of a melancholy sound, you know what I'm saying?"

Ally was rattling off words that she wasn't even listening to herself say, speaking them because they were the only sounds that could fill the empty silence that otherwise floated between her and Austin as they sat shoulder-to-shoulder at the piano in the practice room. Her words were slightly slurred, hastily strung together like a kindergarten macaroni-necklace project. She couldn't help it: she was nervous.

Ally would give anything to be as cool and collected as Austin, anything to have control over the way she acted and the things she said, anything to be anybody but Ally Dawson, who collapsed into herself when a cute boy waved hi or when her hand was touching Austin's on the piano the way it was right now, the way it was so warm and tough and how it sent sparks rocketing up and down her spine—

_What are you thinking? _she mentally scolded herself. _He doesn't make you feel that way anymore. Stop it right now Dawson._

But she _couldn't_ stop it. She couldn't control anything anymore. It was like she was trying to drive a car, but the steering wheel was just out of her reach and she ended up swerving every which way, with nothing in her power to stop it. She _hated_ that feeling. It was another thing she couldn't help, a little thing, and even through it was small it accumulated to her mountain of troubles: Ally Dawson was a control freak.

Her mind was so wrapped up in itself that she had completely forgotten about Austin's hand on top of hers, about the little shock, the electricity that had coursed through her; but although her realization of this had gone away, the sparks remained to shake her out of her thoughts and slap her in the face with a reality check. She remembered where she was and what she was supposed to be doing, and that she had been talking about something that clearly wasn't important to the situation anymore.

It took her a long while to become only vaguely aware that she had stopped talking and was now staring—no, lost—in Austin Moon's dreaded hazel eyes. She was _lost_ in the abyss of those eyes, _lost_ in the sheer depth of them, _lost_ in the raw idea that they seemed to be lost as well…in _hers_.

It was astounding to her that her own brown eyes could be deemed worthy of such a rich, such a _luscious_ color, so gold-flecked-with-green, so exquisite, so _hazel_. Her eyes, her plain, common, boring brown eyes, were like a river stone next to a ruby, a kitchen maid next to a king, a bluejay next to a sparrow: overlooked, overshadowed, and not cast a second glance.

"Your eyes aren't boring."

_What?_

It was Austin's voice. Was it inside her head? No, she had clearly seen his lips move, heard his words with her ears, not her mind. She had been thinking out loud, apparently: she did that a lot lately.

"Your eyes aren't boring, Ally," Austin repeated. He ran his fingers through his hair—again—and cocked his head slightly, studying her. "Your eyes are amazing. Your eyes are really complex, you know what I mean? It's like they're made up of a million tiny paper-thin layers. Kind of like a puff pastry."

Ally cracked a half-smile. "Are you comparing my eyes to a pastry?"

"Well, yeah. I guess I am."

Ally blushed. _Don't blush_, her head reminded herself. _His words don't have any sort of impact on you._

_Yes they do, _her heart argued fiercely. Suddenly it was like there was an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other; yet, she wasn't torn. She was merely confused. Nothing more. Right?

_They don't. Now stop it_, her head snapped.

_I don't want to._

_Cut it out! Do you hate him or not?_

_Well…_

_Remember what he did to you? Remember how he broke you, crushed you, used you? _

Ally sighed. Of course she remembered. It wasn't something she was going to forget easily, was it? Besides, she didn't want to think about it all anymore: she could just move on and weep when no one was looking. Like she already did. She bawled like a child on the inside every time Austin Moon looked at her.

That was when she remembered that Austin Moon's hand was currently resting on top of hers.

She glanced down at their hands. Her fingers were delicately fanned out, his slipping in the empty spaces between them, his palm sitting on the back of her hand. It would be a wonderful position for any two people that weren't Austin and Ally. For any two that weren't in such an awkward mess of a situation.

Despite the fact that she knew it was wrong to be overlapping hands with her best-friend-ex-boyfriend-sort-of-new-crush, his touch on the sensitive inside of her fingers sent wild bolts of energy flying through her body, heating up her insides with a fuzzy, tingling sort of feeling. It was a nice feeling: the type that she wished would last forever, but she knew could not; she felt almost guilty. A guilty pleasure.

Ally looked up at him again, her eyes grazing over his firm lips, his well-crafted jawline, his perfectly-proportioned nose, and the little smile that turned up the corners of his mouth assured her that he was awash with that warm feeling too. But when his eyes caught on hers, everything transformed into a blur.

Almost subconsciously, she felt that they were leaning in towards each other, closer and closer…his face was inches from hers…the lovely feeling splashed around inside her, filling her, touching her in places she didn't know existed, and then—

It stopped.

The feeling evaporated almost as quickly as the blur, blocked by realization and acknowledgment on what was happening: she, Ally Dawson, had just come dangerously close to kissing Austin Moon for the second time in a week.

"No," she whispered. "No no no! This is not happening again!" She stood up and began pacing the room, hands clawing at her hair in frustration.

"I'm sorry," Austin said quietly. She could see the slight hurt in his eyes, the feeling of jumping off of cloud nine and realizing just how solid the ground really is evident. "I didn't mean—"

She seated herself again on the piano bench, a little shiver of warmth passing over her as their bodies came closer. "No, it's not you. It's that when you do that…I feel that spark all over again."

She looked back up at him, again feeling guilty, but not with pleasure; with a horrible, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that sizzled when she saw the pain in his face. "I'm really sorry, Austin."

Austin sighed. "Don't be. This whole mess is my fault."

Ally opened her mouth again, wanting to tell him that it was partly hers, but she decided against it. Things were better off the way the were. So instead, she quietly stood up and dashed out of the practice room, trying to keep the new tears that brewed in her eyes from falling.

Nevertheless, a sob escaped her lips as she left.

* * *

Dear Songbook,

It happened again today. Austin and I almost kissed. It just happened so quickly, I mean, I know I'm supposed to hate him, but…I think I may be falling for him again.

Oh, screw that—I never stopped liking him and I know it. But what do I do? I can't afford to let him in again, but it's not fair to completely shut him out; I suppose I should only shut him out of that part of my life? I've got to board up my windows and lock up my heart so he can't get in, and then…I'll be okay. I hope.

Hey, that's good—_I'm boarding up my windows, locking up my heart…*_

Always,

Ally

"Excuse me miss, do you sell violin strings?"

"Can you point me to the basses?"

"How much are the guitar picks?"

"Do you have any Miami Music magazines for sale?"

"We're out of strings, sorry, basses are over there, guitar picks are free but please only take one, magazines are right on that table, NO, THIS IS NOT THE EAR DOCTOR!" Ally pointed in different directions as she listed answers to a batch of customers' questions. She didn't have to think about what to say at all; everything she had to know had been drilled thoroughly into her head.

Everything about the _store_, that is.

If she knew everything she had to know, she would have been married to her prince and they would've flown off into the sunset on her unicorn on their way to their cotton candy palace. But this was reality and she was not Cinderella, and just like that, her little fairytale vision disappeared. Gone.

As her eyes roamed the sea of customers before her, she suddenly realized how tired she was, and how her head was pounding with a headache and her stomach was churning—probably from the burnt eggs she had cooked up that morning.

Finally, four o'clock rolled around and her shift ended, setting her free from the cage of her job. She wanted to go home, take some medication, and curl up on the sofa with hot cocoa and quite possibly the television. For a moment, she finally understood the saying, "Home is where the heart is."

As she stepped outside, she noticed the clouds still whirling in the sky, the trees bending obidiently in the wind's grasp. A single raindrop broke loose and landed on the tip of her nose.

Yes, a storm was on its way.

* * *

**I was really looking forward to writing this chapter, and even though it's unbelievably short, I'm happy with the way it turned out.**

***There's the ****_Hurricane_**** line for this chapter :)**

**So, since 9 reviews was maybe a bit much to ask for (sorry, it was my ego getting ahead of myself), let's go for 7 reviews, yes? Copy-paste your favorite part of this chapter into that awesome review you're going to write, and have a fantabulous day!**

**~Mia**


	5. Like a Flying Squirrel

**Yes, I know.**

**I am a horrible person.**

**I'll be completely honest with you guys about why I haven't updated in 3 (!) weeks. I have just been so incredibly busy that I've barely had any time to myself. I was writing this chapter whenever I had a sec, and I had just had it done until…BOOM! I accidentally deleted the whole thing.**

**So, this is the REWRITE of chapter five. I'm extremely sorry if it stinks, because it's pretty rushed. Anyway, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Austin & Ally, ****_Hurricane_**** by Bridgit Mendler, or My Little Pony.**

* * *

Ally awoke to the feeling of a hammer being slammed into the side of her head.

No, not a hammer…a pickax, or a big boulder; something larger and heavier that would cause her more pain than she already was feeling. She attempted to touch her head, but even the slightest movement of her hand cost bright energy that she didn't have; she let her arm flop limply to her side again in defeat. The hammer slammed harder. Surely she was bleeding?

She salvaged enough energy to drag her eyelids open and look at her alarm clock. A groan flitted from her mouth as her head throbbed, the blood rushing to her ears. Her morning was already off to a dreadful start and it wasn't even seven in the morning.

On an even more devastating note, it was a Monday, and as far as she knew, it wasn't Martin Luther King Junior Day or Memorial Day or summer vacation for that matter. Which meant that school started in exactly forty-five minutes. Blah.

Ally had loved school ever since she was a little girl. She remembered the very first day of kindergarten, long before she met Dez or Austin or had done any serious songwriting. Her mother had helped her pick out the perfect outfit for that day: Ally vaguely remembered something along the lines of a white denim jacket and a skirt with roses on it.

"Have fun, Ally-Cat," Penny had wished her five-year-old daughter as she planted a kiss on her forehead. "Be strong."

Ally had grinned as she hoisted her My Little Pony backpack tighter on her back, her chocolate pigtails swinging in the light morning breeze. "Of course," she had replied. Shyness and stage fright-free, she had marched off to kindergarten, confident and bold. She had met Trish on the bus, kindly said hello, and their friendship had been born. She had raised her hand to answer every single question the teacher had asked that day, picking from her endless vocabulary and supply of answers, using words most of the children had never even heard of.

Now everything had changed. She was shy, geeky, invisible; she was petite, unheard of, a mystery; she was Ally Dawson, the weird kid who was always writing secret stuff in an untouchable book. And Ally Dawson currently had a very difficult task ahead of her: somehow hauling herself out of bed.

She groaned in frustration and buried her face in her pillow.

* * *

"Ally, sweetie?"

Ally opened her eyes a sliver, immediately regretting it as painfully sharp light shot into her face. They were just open far enough to see her father, standing over her with a cup of something hot. It smelled yummy. She became suddenly aware of how hungry and thirsty she was; she felt like she had spent the last three days trudging through a dry and barren desert, without food and water to sustain her. She didn't know what was in the cup, but whatever it was, she really wanted to drink it. How long had she been out? Hours? Days?

She let her head loll to the side so she could look at her clock, her eyes struggling to make out the dimly glowing red numbers that flickered seemingly randomly on the screen of the old digital.

That was when it hit her like a heavy stone block: it was a school day.

With renewed strength, she shot up like a bullet, headache still pounding in her ears. "Dad!" She struggled to sit up. "Dad, I'm supposed to be in school!"

Her father chuckled. "I already called the school to let them know you'd be staying home sick. You have nothing to worry about."

She stubbornly crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm _not_ sick."

Her father laughed again, and she irritably informed him that it wasn't funny. "Ally, you have a fever of a hundred and two point four degrees, you've slept through almost half the day, and you can barely sit up in bed. I'd say your pretty sick. Which is why—" he held out the cup to her "—I brought you some tea. Earl Grey, your favorite."

Ally graciously took a sip of the the piping hot tea, feeling slightly better as the warm liquid filled up her body. Lester sat next to her until she had drained the cup, gently stroking her hair as she drank; when she handed it back to him, empty, he told her he had to get back to Sonic Boom to finish his shift, but that he'd tuck her in.

"Wait," she said as he tugged the covers up to her chin with utmost care. She made a weak gesture to her songbook, which lay shut on her nightstand. "Can…could you write something down in my book for me?"

"Sure," Lester replied, picking up the leather-encased book and the pencil that lay next to it. He flipped to the next blank page. "What do you want me to write?"

"I'm flopping on my bed like a flying squirrel."*

"What?"

"Just write it."

He shrugged and set the pencil to the paper, copying down the words she had told him to in his big, bold handwriting. Closing the book back on the nightstand, he pressed one last kiss to Ally's forehead. "Get some rest," he ordered gently. But he hadn't needed to; his daughter was already sound asleep.

* * *

"Austin."

_"Austin."_

_"Austin!"_

"Huh?"

Austin thought he heard people shouting his name, a whole chorus of people that kept getting louder and louder until they started to deafen him. He supposed he had been zoning out—again. He simply hadn't been able to focus for the past couple days; there was always a little something nagging in the back of his mind, coaxing his thoughts away from where they were supposed to be and introducing him to something he was entirely unfamiliar with: daydreaming.

Or rather, day-_nightmaring._

Rarely was it a pleasant experience when he slipped into this new zone. Austin was not a dreamer; he wasn't accustomed to the feeling of not being able to control what he was seeing, to the feeling of being completely overwhelmed by what was happening around him, to the feeling of being really, totally helpless.

But sometimes, very, very rarely, he daydreamed up good dreams, good memories and familiar faces and comforting sounds that made him feel warm and fuzzy and safe inside. And, although he was a bit embarrassed to realize it, the happy dreams were always, always about Ally.

It wasn't like it was _his_ fault.

_He_ had absolutely no control over who he did and did not fall for. _He_ had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he was hopelessly in love with Ally Dawson and that that was why he was going out of his mind trying to get to her, to the one girl who wasn't begging on her knees for him, to the one girl who was out of his reach.

_But I'm Austin Moon_, he thought, shaking with frustration. _I'm supposed to be able to do anything_.

But, unfortunately for him, her walls were up and they were not coming down any time soon.

Something vibrated in his pocket. He gave a small jolt of surprise, but quickly regained his posture—although his back was suddenly abnormally straight—as his history teacher, Mrs. Circinae, looked his way. Phones were strictly not allowed to be turned on during school hours, especially not in her classroom. Her cold eyes caught on his, clutching at them for a moment as she stared him down. Her eyebrows twitched slightly as he stared right back.

Oh, history class with Harriet Circinae. Always an experience.

She reluctantly turned away again. Austin's hand inched downwards to the pocket of his jeans, fingers slipping into the folds of the rough denim and curling around his phone as he let them absorb the contrasting smoothness of the plastic. As quietly as he could, he worked it out of his pocket just far enough for him to make out the words on the bright little screen.

_Trish_.

He cast a sideways glance at the Latina four seats over, staring at the teacher almost too innocently. Her hands were folded in her lap and Austin knew that they were concealing her phone, her thumbs probably tapping away at another text to him that would get his own phone confiscated for the rest of the month.

He slid out an inch or two more to read her text.

_I have a plan_.

His eyebrows furrowed a bit. Trish's plans always ended with someone getting very badly injured. Usually that person was Dez, but lucky for him, the redhead wasn't in this class.

His own thumbs shot a reply back at record speed.

_Is that a good thing?_

His phone gave a very quiet buzz as a new text was received. To a normal human being, it was almost too soft to hear, but Harriet Circinae had eyes like a hawk and ears like a rabbit. She whipped around and her eyes locked with his again. After a full minute of examining him, she apparently decided that she would deal with the boy later, because she resumed writing on the whiteboard.

Austin bit his lip. That was the second time today; if it happened once more he'd get a detention, and she'd probably take his phone away as well. Nevertheless, he had a hunch of what Trish's plan might be related to, and at this point he was too curious to ignore it. He looked down at the screen again.

_Of course it is. And just so you know, it involves Ally._

Ally. Where was Ally? She wasn't in his history class, and she wasn't in his next class (English) either, which meant he could maybe see her at lunch—that is, if she was willing to talk to him at all. She had been ignoring him lately; what had once been a clean cut, truthful relatationship, a two-peas-in-a-pod relationship, a flirt-giggle-blush-repeat relationship had turned into something much more complex, something that needed more nuts and bolts to hold it together than the two of them had; something that wasn't quite done yet, but he had a feeling…a feeling that when it was finished, it would be a marvelous masterpiece.

He bit down on his lip harder, willing himself not to begin thinking about Ally. Where _was_ she?

_She's home sick_. Another text from Trish popped up as if she had been reading his mind, and, with another cautious glance at Mrs Circinae, he dared to reply.

_So what's the plan?_

It couldn't be a good thing. It couldn't have a happy ending. It just _couldn't_, because this was Trish they were talking about, and something…something was going to go wrong, or blow up, or break in two, or blow up, or die, or blow up. And eventually, all H-E-double-hockey-stick would break loose and rain down on them like stinging fire from the heavens. Trish (usually) had the best intentions, but her plans…just…no.

But where _was_ this plan?

It wasn't showing up on his phone. Had Mrs Circinae magicked Trish's phone out of the Latina's hands and into her own? Had Trish suddenly and silently been abducted by aliens? Or had she simply not finished texting it yet?

His phone beeped, and it beeped a tad bit louder than he'd expected it to.

He prayed no one heard.

But obviously someone had, because mere seconds later, he was hunched over in the dark shadow of Mrs. Circinae as she loomed over him, intimidating, yet still sort of…comical, almost. He didn't dare look up at her lifeless eyes, for fear that the tension bubbling between the woman and the boy would burst.

He suddenly became aware of how very silent the classroom had become; the lecture-vomit had stopped gushing out of Mrs. Circinae's mouth, and the quiet, undercover chatter of the students had suddenly evaporated. He sensed that every eye was focused upon him and the teacher as they waited for Austin Moon to be told off by a woman forty years older than him. For one hopeful moment, nothing happened, and he thought that maybe Mrs. Circinae would just let him be, that the bubble would never pop.

Until Maggie Brown, the most boring, unnoticed girl in the grade, awkwardly cleared her throat.

"Mister Moon," Mrs. Circinae hissed, her voice deadly quiet, "give me your phone." Austin knew he was in no position to object, despite of how badly he felt he should; nevertheless, he reluctantly handed over his phone, wincing when the teacher's sharp nails raked over his palm as she snatched it from him.

"See me after class," she hissed, droplets of saliva flying out of her mouth in an arc and plopping down in the desktop. She straightened up again and turned to face the class.

"Let's see who could be so urgently texting Mister Moon at a time like this!" Mrs. Circinae was practically cackling as she marched to the front of the classroom, triumphantly waving his phone around in front of her. She _hated_ Austin and jumped at every chance to make him look bad, and this was her perfect opportunity.

Austin sat paralyzed with fear. She was about to read Trish's plan out loud to the entire class, and he didn't even know what it _was_ yet. He didn't know if it was a good plan or an embarrassing plan or a plan that would get them both into deep trouble, and him grounded until his eighteenth birthday.

He shut his eyes and mentally prepared himself for her to announce Trish's name and plan, but nothing happened; the room was again flooded with deadly silence. And when she finally spoke, the name that casually flitted from her lips was not the one he had expected. It was a name that had much more impact on him than Trish's, that surprised him even more than he thought, that made him both extremely curious and incredibly reluctant to actually hearing the text.

"It says, 'New Message from Ally Dawson.'"

* * *

**Ooh, cliffy (not)! Can you believe we're halfway through this story already? This chapter was fairly rushed and I'm not completely satisfied with how it turned out, but hey, a chapter's a chapter. Now, down to business.**

**I've been planning a new Auslly multi chapter in my head. It will be called ****_And This is the Summer of Our Lives. _****Sound catchy? :) So now I'm wondering if you guys would like me to start writing/posting it now or if I should wait until this fic is over? Let me know!**

**Here's a shoutout to ****0oCupcakeQueeno0**** for giving me the inspiration for this chapter! I had a small case of writer's block, and then he/she/it asked if she was sick. I was like, OMG, that's amazing…**

***There's the Hurricane line for this chapter! I was really struggling with this line, I couldn't figure out what to do with it. But being sick was a perfect idea for it!**

**So, let's try 8 reviews, yes? And copy-paste your favorite part of the chapter into your review!**

**~Mia**


	6. He's Got the Way

**Hello everyone! **

**I'm glad you all enjoyed the last chapter! Your reviews just make me smile every time I read them :) **

**This is just a filler, unfortunately, but important all the same. The next chapter has MAJOR AUSLLY! YAYYY! You'll find out why they broke up in the chapter after that. So there's a little teaser!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Austin & Ally, ****_Hurricane_**** by Bridgit Mendler, or Cheerios.**

* * *

When Ally opened her eyes again an hour or so later, she felt surprisingly better. Her drained energy was returning with every breath she took, and the throbbing headache that had rendered her completely motionless before had been replaced by a faint rumbling in the pit of her stomach. It was then that she remembered how hungry she was.

She sat up and stretched with noticeable ease, every muscle in her body aching to be used. Not bothering with making herself look presentable, she hopped out of bed, tugged a fading hoodie on over her pajamas, and made her way down to the kitchen of the Dawson's tiny rental two-story.

As she settled in with a rewarding bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, she noticed her phone lying on the edge of the dining room table, still and untouched. _Or lonely_, she thought, a bittersweet smile gracing her lips. _Just like me_.

She reached over and managed to grasp the phone with the tips of her fingers, drawing it to her and flipping it over to see the screen. Not surprisingly, she'd been spammed with texts from Trish (all along the lines of _Where are you? Are you sick? Do I need to contact the police? Mrs. Circinae's really boring) _and an average amount of fan mail for an average day.

Yes, that's right. Ally Dawson regularly recieved fan mail.

She had no idea how the fans magicked her number out of thin air, or how they knew exactly what she was doing at any given moment; it was sort of annoying actually. She loved her fans, but it was a pain to have to scroll through a hundred fan texts and emails to get to the ones she really cared about. She remembered the first day she received fan mail; she recalled scrolling through various messages from her mother, Trish, her father, Austin, Trish, Dez, and Trish and coming upon a number she didn't recognize. She had been a little frightened to read that message at first; what if it was something really awkward or creepy that would render her sleepless during the night? In the end, it was Austin who had convinced her to read it. He had laughed when she flipped out about the fan mail. _Not laughed_, she corrected herself. It had been more of a chuckle, that adorable little chuckle he did that was like a tiny burst of sunshine on a day as rainy as today.

Letting a little smile grace her lips at the pleasant memories, she reluctantly opened the first message from Trish. It was a little plea of explanation, and Ally realized just how much her friend cared for her. She was quite lucky, always having a girl like Trish there for her—like the net suspended under a daring tightrope walker, ready for catching if she should fall.

But then again, luck comes with a price, and Ally had payed it the day she met Austin; now she had a thoroughly screwed-up love life.

For what felt like the millionth time in the last three days, Ally tried to shake him out of her mind. It seemed like every time she forced herself to do so, it became increasingly difficult; costing more and more effort with the pushing away of her thoughts. Forcing her eyes back to the screen of her phone again, she quickly texted Trish that she was staying home sick and not to worry, because she'd be back at school tomorrow and already felt perfectly fine.

She received an immediate reply that sent a small jolt of surprise through her, but it melted away just as quickly; quite frankly, it had nothing to do with the previous subject.

_Austin was staring at you in math last Friday ;)_

She frowned. _No he wasn't_, she replied.

_You soooooo like each other._

_Trish! We broke up for a reason!_

_Because you're both liars and you can't admit your feelings for each other ;))))_

_Please don't._

_Ally, you need to talk to him. Work it out._

_Why? What's wrong with things now?_

_Everything, and you know it._

Ally's stomach plummeted to her feet, sat there for a lone second, and then rocketed back up through her body, shooting up to her throat. Suddenly she didn't feel so good anymore. Dropping her phone to the floor with a loud clunk, she dashed to the bathroom and leaned over the toilet just in time.

Collapsing against the bathroom wall, Trish's words flooded back to her, ringing in her ears with truth.

_Everything, and you know it._

Trish was right. Ally and Austin had done nothing to support their being together; when one pillar snapped, they had stood off to the side, guilty, and watched their relationship crumble to dust. And now, when it was working hard to rebuild itself, they were watching again, watching when they could be helping it flourish and touch the sky. That was why everything was so much more complicated than it needed to be. They had quit, quit before they even tried. Quitters. Ally Dawson was not a quitter, yet she had given up on something that meant more to her than anything else she could think of.

She had to talk to Austin. Right now.

Stumbling back to the kitchen, she retrieved her phone from the floor and began composing a new text to him at record speed. Then she deleted it just as quickly and started again. She rewrote it nine times, before finally settling on the obvious.

_Austin, we really need to talk. Call me when you're ready._

Sent.

With a sigh of relief, she let herself fall into the soft carpeting, finally feeling content.

* * *

"It says, 'New Message from Ally Dawson.'"

_"What?"_

Austin nearly leaped out of his seat as he made a flailing grab for his phone. Mrs. Circinae, though, seemed to have no intention of returning it to him; with an anger-inducing sneer, she dropped it pointedly in her pocket and gave it a firm pat, as if to assure that it would be staying for a while.

Austin collapsed in his seat, burying his face in his hands. What was he to do? It was the first time Ally had willingly contacted him on her own since their break up anniversary, and he couldn't even see what she had said. What if it was really important? He thought she _hated_ him by now. Hadn't he completely blown it for her ages ago?

The rest of history class was a blur. He barely heard a word of what Mrs. Circinae said as she continued the lesson; all he could think about was Ally, and what she might've texted him, and what could be so urgent that she had to contact him when she knew he was in the middle of class. It was a tantalizing, slow-motion blur, barely shifting as the hand of the clock tick-tick-ticked to the right. _Tick…tick…tick…tick…_

Several hundred ticks later, Austin was jolted out of his endless state of uncomfort by the shrill voice of the ringing bell. Biting his lip, he was quite suddenly slammed in the face with the unpleasant realization of the trouble Mrs. Circinae was about to sink him in. One half of him didn't want to go to talk to her, but curiosity was killing the other; slowly, reluctantly, he rose from his seat and began a walk-the-plank stride to her desk, clutching at every opportunity to stall. His heart sank as he approached the end of the plank, knowing that eventually he would slip into the water, and, as he struggled for breath, that he would probably drown or get eaten by sharks.

"Mister Moon," Mrs. Circinae smiled a fake teacher smile, the hatred and glee glowing evident in her cold eyes. "So, tell me: what was so urgent that you had to be texting Miss Dawson in my class?"

"I wasn't texting her, it was—"

"Deniyal and lies are not tolerated in this classroom," she cut him off. "I don't care who you were texting, it'd just better not happen again."

Austin opened his mouth to reply as she pulled his phone from her pocket. "All the same," she continued, smirking at the look on his face, "I won't be giving this back today."

"Tomorrow?" he asked hopefully.

"No. Next week."

"Next _week?"_

Austin couldn't believe his ears. An entire _week_ before he could get any chance to see what Ally had texted him. He wouldn't survive. He would _die; _surely, the curiosity would literally kill him?

He wasn't going to talk to her about it in person, no; the relationship was still to delicate, the ice to thin. He would wait to approach her about it until he read her text, he'd leave her be and let things continue to unravel on their own as they already were.

His feet like lead and the thoughts in his mind leaving him feeling like his head was too heavy for his body, he slumped to his class.

* * *

Three hours.

It had been three hours since Ally had sent Austin that text, three hours since Trish had brought her to her brutal realization. A hundred and eighty minutes. Too many seconds to count. And he hadn't replied yet, not a single sign that he had even seen it. This was nearly impossible; Austin was one of those people who was constantly on their phone, feeling the need to check their texts or their various social networks every twenty minutes. It was really quite annoying; Ally had barely stopped bugging him about it when they were together. It was no fun trying to talk to someone who was staring at his screen instead of in her eyes, but now she wished she hadn't. If only he would look at his phone!

But then again, she had told him to reply when he felt ready. Perhaps he wasn't yet; perhaps he felt that he still needed to gather himself up from the intricate mess him and her had woven themselves in to. She decided to give it time; patience was essential when it came to love, wasn't it?

Ally let herself fall back into the soft pillows that lay strewn across her bed, head spinning with questions as she stared at a particular spot in the hard, uneven plaster of her ceiling. What was she to do now?

It all depended on Austin, in the end. He was the one that would have to break the ice, the one that had the push and pull of the situation; it was her fault anyway, as she had practically handed it to him wrapped up in tidy red wrapping paper with a shiny bow on top of it. _Here you go, Austin, have total and utter control over my life until you feel like giving it back, won't you?_

Rolling over, her eyes fell on her songbook, still on the nightstand where her father had placed it that morning after he'd written the words she'd instructed. Stretching out her arm, she managed to grasp it with her built-for-the-piano fingers and shift it closer until she could wrap her whole hand around the spine. Picking up the pencil that sat patiently beside the spot where her songbook had been, she began to write.

Dear Songbook,

So, I stayed home sick today for the first time since third grade, but strangely enough, I've made the most progress in me and Austin's relationship since our break-up-iversary. I actually _told_ him to _talk_ to me! Via text, of course, but still. So basically, I handed my life to him, and I don't know when he'll reply. It looks like I'll be spending the next—oh, who knows? Hours? Days? Maybe weeks?—staring at my phone when I can. I'm kind of starting to regret breaking up with him in the first place.

No, of course I don't, I can't—he broke my heart, remember? Still, it's like a tiny, despicable little piece of me wants it to have been a mistake, a misunderstanding. What if he doesn't even have feelings for me anymore? I've come to the conclusion that I've definitely got them for him now; is it wrong that I want to kiss him every time he walks by?

Still, we'll have to talk about what happened eventually. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe the day after, or maybe even next week? I'll wait. I'll always wait for him.

One last thing I want to write down:

_And he picks me up like he's got the way of the hurricane.*_

Love, Ally.

* * *

**I don't know where you guys live, but I live in California, so when I usually update it's Friday ****_there_****. However, I'm on vacation at the moment (yay!) and it's now Saturday morning ****_here_****. So I'm updating now. Kay? Cool.**

**So, this chapter was extremely hard to write for me because I stink at fillers. Can you believe there's only four more chapters of this story left? Again, I'll let you know that the next chapter is a HUGE AUSLLY one…yayyy!**

***From ****_Hurricane_****.**

**So, I didn't get eight reviews, but I got a total of 40, so I'm happy. My overall goal is a hundred reviews at the end of this story, but I know that's not going to happen at this rate. So, I'd like to try for 75 in the end.**

**Get me to 47? Please? **

**And copy-paste your favorite part into your review!**

**~Mia**


	7. Flying Till I'm Crying

**Hey there! I got not seven, but EIGHT reviews on the last chapter! Yippee! **

**So, here's the big Auslly chapter you've all been waiting for! I have been looking forward to writing this for, like, six chapters. And I finished EARLY, so I'm actually posting it on time. Yay!**

**I had lots of fun writing this one, and I hope you have fun reading it!**

**Oh, and here's a shutout to **R5Forever**, who asked for one but didn't get it cause I forgot ;)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Austin & Ally, ****_Hurricane_**** by Bridgit Mendler, or the snippet of lyric I stole from Carly Rae Jepsen's _More Than a Memory._**

* * *

One full week.

An _entire_ week. Monday to Sunday. With Tuesday and Friday and every other day in the middle gone. Flitted away like a black-and-blue butterfly off a flower after being frightened by an approaching, careless little tyke. And today it was Monday afternoon. _Again_.

It was a little like waiting for Christmas or a birthday to come, or even the night to end; every second taking more time to pass than the one that came before it, tantalizing, reluctant, painstakingly slow…like trying to swim through syrup, becoming thicker and more solid with every stroke. One by one, the days wandered by, becoming equals with mere minutes on a clock.

And so, Ally thought she might burst right out of her seams with the tension that had been trickling into her body, her head, filling her with too much of something bitter; and Austin, _the_ Austin Heart-stealer-Internet-sensation-popstar-flipping Moon, had not yet replied to her text yet.

She was beginning to think it was too late, that they were too far down the paths of their separate ways to turn back. Austin was someone who didn't hesitate to let someone know how he felt, someone who was very upfront with his feelings, save his lack of skill for communicating them. He didn't like something, he'd let her know. Right away. Not like _this_. It wasn't _like_ him.

She was also beginning to think that something was wrong.

They hadn't said a word to each other at school. They had barely done more than acknowledge each other, much less talk; yet, every time they walked past each other, every time one head bobbed to the other in acknowledgment, Ally felt the tension between them brewing, growing taller and thicker and ready to snap, each layer only paper-thin.

A wisp of memory drifted past her, twirling into curls as it gave her a teasing whiff of a sweet moment.

* * *

_"Your eyes are amazing. Your eyes are really complex, you know what I mean? It's like they're made up of a million tiny paper-thin layers. Kind of like a puff pastry."_

_"Are you comparing my eyes to a pastry?" _

_"Well, yeah. I guess I am."_

* * *

Ally felt a small smile gracing her lips as she remembered that conversation with Austin. It had been a horrible day, in the end, but it made her happy to remember the bittersweet minutes she had spent with him, side by side at the piano.

_Don't, _she reminded herself. _Don't think about it._

With a deep sigh, she returned to the French horn she'd been polishing, the tarnished metal beginning to resume its shine and bright golden color as her washcloth smoothed the polish, thinning it with even strokes. She remembered how she used to hang the instruments up for drying a few a years back; she remembered the strange looks she received from Austin and Dez as she cleaned like a maniac; she remembered it all. She remembered so many things, the little ones and the big, but she never bothered drawing them to her attention.

The rain was still coming down fast outside the practice room window. It beat and the ground with extreme force, and Ally wondered why the earth didn't crack right in two, what with the millions of water droplets pounding its crust with tiny fists. Then she chuckled to herself at the ridiculous question she'd dreamed up.

It was quiet in the practice room; there were no customers down in the store, and her father was off at another convention (saxophone?), so it was silent, except for the sounds of cloth against bronze and the pitter-patter of rain on the roof. Ally was beginning to grow fond of silence, and she felt comfortable enveloped in it, by herself, cleaning instruments in the practice room.

But the footsteps that were pounding up the Sonic Boom stairs with haste told her that she wasn't as alone as she'd perceived.

She whirled around as the door swung open, her dark curls flying in front of her face and momentarily blocking her view of the rain-soaked blonde that stood in the doorway.

He was dripping wet. His clothes clinging to his body, she watched him closely, searching his face for any sign of explanation as he wiped back the soft blonde locks that were plastered to his forehead.

"Ally," Austin panted, out of breath from running, "Ally, I got your text."

She raised her eyebrows. "So why didn't you just call?"

"Because…because…" He was tripping over his words. "We need to talk…in…in person." He pushed his bangs out of his face again.

Ally looked him up and down again for a moment, debating if she should be angry or feel bad. After a minute—an awkward one as well—had ticked by, she snapped, "Well, don't just _stand_ there, you'll get the floor all wet. Sit." She grabbed his wet shoulders and pushed him all too forcefully into a chair, but as she looked down at how wet her fingers had become with the cold rainwater that soaked out of his shirt, she recalled her words and realized how harsh they sounded in hindsight. Glancing back at the shivering boy who sat, dripping wet, in the chair she'd shoved him into, she felt her heart break with pity. What had _become_ of her?

"I'm sorry," she said softly, putting her hand on his ice-cold shoulder again. "You must be freezing, I'll get you a towel." She gave him a small smile and slipped into the practice room closet.

"It's okay, he replied to her as she rummaged around. "You're not really yourself." He paused, and a thin silence hung in the air, broken only by the sound of Ally's small fingers grasping a spare towel. "I'm not either."

Ally bit her lip as she gently tucked the thin towel around his quivering shoulders, pausing to scoop a couple stray blonde locks out of the way as she bunched it around the back of his neck.

"So," she said, seating herself in a chair opposite his, "you start."

She heard a small sigh escape his lips as he ran his fingers through his damp hair, looking as if he was trying to figure out where to start. She saw his eyes, darting around the room, fill with remorse, and…were those _tears_ she saw?

Well, it didn't matter. They were gone the moment she looked again, replaced by his sweet voice…the voice that had melted the hearts of so many far-away girls, and was now capturing her own.

"It wasn't what it looked like," he said softly. "You walked away before I could talk to you."

"Because I didn't want to hear your excuses," she replied, a dash of cold tingeing her voice. She wasn't in the mood to have this conversation for the fifth time.

"They weren't excuses. They were the truth."

"The truth! Ha!" All feelings of pity and remorse vanished from her heart, replaced by the same sheer hate and irritability she had been feeling for days now. "As if you were honest before!"

_"Ally,"_ Austin stood, trying to get her to listen and remain calm at the same time, "I _know_ that what you saw hurt you, because it hurt me too. But the hurt is what's making it hard for you to think about the situation. You just have to—"

"I don't _have_ to do anything!" Ally felt new hurt, hurt that brought fresh tears to her eyes, awaken deep inside her. She stood up as well, thinking that the shift in her height would maybe lessen his edge to their bickering, but as her nose became level with his lips, she realized it was entirely the wrong thing to do—because, as if fate just wanted to pile more awkwardness on the situation, they were less than a foot apart.

The feelings of annoyance left her entirely, and she knew it they had escaped him as well. So close…they were so, so close…

"Austin," she whispered softly, "did you know…did you know that…that night, I almost said I loved you?"

The words came out of no where, the truth breaking down the concrete walls holding it back. But she felt good saying them, and, as she stepped closer, she knew they were right, because a smile curved his lips.

"And," he replied, even quieter, even closer, "did you know that I almost said it back?"

She saw him close his eyes—tilt his head—they were so close, _so_ close—she could feel his warm breath on her cheeks, see every curve, every tiny detail of his face—so close—

And then their lips met.

Ally's entire body froze as a shock of sheer numbness radiated from their connected mouths, heart beat increasing ten-fold and nearly thumping right out of her chest. She was paralyzed, petrified, rooted to her spot; she had no strength to raise her arms around Austin's neck the way she felt she should, and no will to kiss him back, despite of how badly she wanted to. She stood like a statue for what felt like hours, locked in place, seemingly passive to the abrupt action.

But then, quite suddenly, the numbness vanished, evaporated, replaced by a tiny little tingle in the pit of her stomach. She felt it grow stronger, fuller, pleasant at last, shooting to the very top of her head and plummeting into the tips of her toes with a supernatural force. She shut her eyes to keep the world from spinning her dizzy with the extreme sensation that shot like dynamite from Austin's lips. She placed her hands on the back of his neck, his already in her hair, and stood on her tip toes to press her lips back against his.

She finally discovered what cloud nine really felt like.

And she did it only by kissing her crush of nearly two years, her ex boyfriend, her partner, her best friend, quite possibly the love of her life. She was kissing Austin Moon, and it was the most wonderful thing she had ever done.

And then, after five blissful split seconds, she realized what she was doing.

Abruptly, she pulled away, lips still slightly parted and tingling with the ghost of the kiss. Putting both hands to her forehead, she stared at him, doe eyes wide with cascading emotions.

Her head was spinning, the whole _world_ was spinning into a blur like an advancing hurricane, dark and threatening and whirling with life, pounding and scraping away at the crust of the very earth they stood upon. She stumbled backwards, dizzy, her hand stretched out behind her back in search of her only refuge in the storm: the cold, solid wall.

Her knees buckled and her legs gave way from under her, sprawling her out on to the ground against the wall. Eyes searing with tears, Ally buried her face in her hands, trying to hide the churning world from her vision. She sat, hunched over, for what felt like hours, dark hair falling across her face like drawn curtains as tears seeped and plummeted through the restricting barrier of her fingers.

The kiss couldn't have lasted for more than five seconds, and yet she had been flying, _soaring _up to cloud nine and fallen down to the cold ground in a matter of seconds, where she now lay crying* her eyes out like a little girl hurt by the big, bad world.**

"Hurricane," she whispered. The word was barely audible, barely a wisp of sound drifting from her lips, but it was certainly there—and Austin had certainly heard it.

"Ally," he said comfortingly, his voice soothing and smooth, "Ally, it's not hurricane season yet." She became aware of his presence beside her, his hand gently rubbing her back. It felt pleasant, and for a moment she completely forgot why she was crying; but remembering that it should to be annoying, she jerked his hand away ("Don't _touch_ me,") and finally glared up at him through bloodshot eyes.

"I'm not talking about an _actual_ hurricane," she snapped. "I'm talking about _you, _you lying little rug!"

She stood up, fists clenched though not ready for fighting, and walked pointedly to the other end of the room.

"Ally…" she heard him stand as well, heard him approach her with feather light strides, heard that his rhythmic, calming breathing was flitting just slightly out of beat, and the thought that maybe, just maybe, she was being a tad too harsh crossed her mind. She mentally slapped it away again like a fat, buzzing fly on a hot summer's day.

"Ally, _please_ don't start one of these again," he mumbled, just above under-his-breath level.

"One of _what?" _Ally hissed, stepping closer with an almost threatening glean in her chocolate eyes. "One of _what? _D'you mean another rant in which I so charmingly expose all my feelings to anyone listening so the world can chew them up and spit them back out at me again, leaving me feeling possibly even worse than before? One of those rants that are _completely_ and utterly _your own fault?!"_

Voice suddenly crackling, she took a deep breath, slowly blowing it back out with her lips forming an 'o' shape in an attempt to calm herself. "I would swear at you," she whispered, "but it's against my morals."

A fresh rant was already bubbling in the pit of her stomach, worse than the first one, slowly rising upwards in an oozing, frothy mixture, filling her, nearly overflowing…nearly there…

And then, with thoughts of Trish bringing her to realization, thoughts of a mother who left her for a half a year because monkeys were more important than her daughter to her, thoughts, pure angry thoughts of Brooke, thoughts of Austin, the boy she was so hopelessly in love with—

She burst.

* * *

**YAYY! Auslly kissed! I'm so happy, really.**

**The next chapter will be where you find out what haaaaappened! Heehee, I can't wait!**

**You'll be glad to hear that my break from middle school started last week, so I'll have LOTS and LOTS of time to write. How's your summer going?**

***This is the ****_Hurricane_**** line ****_'And you're that wind that swept me off my feet, got me flyin' till cryin' and I'm down on my knees' _****in case you didn't recognize it.**

****This was the ****_Hurricane_**** lyric from the first chapter, which I titled 'A Little Girl Hurt By the Big Bad World'. However, I don't believe I put the line in the actual chapter, so there it is.**

**Happy (late) Fourth of July, everyone!**

**So, copy-paste your favorite part into your review (as always).**

**Please get me…hmm…54 reviews?**

**Good luck!**

**~Mia**


	8. And That's When You Hold Me

**What has it been? Seven weeks?**

**Something like that.**

**I'm not even going to give you an excuse. I'm just really sorry. Now let's all move on!**

**This may be the last chapter. I like how it ends, but I might do another.**

**Well, here it is! Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: You know the drill. Nothing in this is mine. Don't sue me.**

* * *

It started with her breathing.

It became increasingly ragged and forced with every breath she took, cold, blissful air smelling of freshly fallen rain fighting its way into her lungs; but with every breath that left her, she felt as if her nose was filling with cement, blocking her nasal passage and making her feel like she was trying to inhale water. Gasping, she wiped at her eyes.

Because then came the tears.

Hot, wet, searing in her eyes, she struggled to keep them from rolling freely down her cheeks, swatting at them with shaking fingers. Her vision became blurred and Austin, still standing in front of her and still with a mixture of confusion and hurt etched upon his face, vanished from view, the salt of her tears burning under her closing eyelids. She fought them back, willing herself to stop crying.

She tried to speak, but words seemed far out of her reach; when they formed on the tip of her tongue, she spit them out weak and spluttering, choked with a brew of hurt and anger that bubbled its way up her throat and twisted her tongue into a million tiny knots. She knew the words, and she knew them well, despite her lack of ever screaming them at Austin. She had only used them once before, and after scarring herself with the expression that consumed his face when he processed them, she vowed that she would never, ever say them to someone—anyone—again. Ever.

So why had they now slipped from her mouth and into his ears?

"I _hate_ you!"

Ally felt her face contort into a look of shock. She couldn't _believe_ herself. More importantly, she couldn't believe Austin's face.

It was comical.

She wanted to snap a picture and post it on her Tweeter. She wanted to caption it with _"Austin Moon is a filthy cheating lying sack of scum!" _She wanted to watch as the picture gained likes and comments, she wanted to laugh when it appeared in magazines and on gossip television channels, she wanted the whole entire world to know how much she hated Austin Moon.

And for that moment, she didn't regret her words, however harsh they sounded. At _all_.

"Ex_cuse_ me?"

Austin's jaw left the floor—which was still soaked with the rain that had been dripping off of him when came pounding into the room—and, although he quickly regained his composure, she thought she saw him swallow. That was all. A swallow. But Ally knew this boy so well that she knew a swallow—a single swallow—meant that he was trying not to cry. He had swallowed when he found out he had the nodules on his vocal chords, swallowed when he had replaced Team Austin with Demonica Dixon, swallowed when Ally had clearly informed him that they were over, and he was swallowing like that now. And the mere idea that she had made Austin succumb to tears made her want swallow up herself.

But for that moment, she didn't want to be that sensitive, innocent Ally Dawson that she felt she should have left behind months ago anymore; no, empathy was no longer her thing. She needed a chance to think about herself as well, and this was it.

"You heard me." She put her hands on her hips and took a step toward him, trying to intimidate him as much as she could with her petite form—which was nearly impossible; the boy was a good head taller than her. Eyes narrowed and lips pressed tightly together to the point that it was nearly painful, she did the best she could to force back the anger that was roughly clawing its way up her throat, inching towards her tongue and threatening to spill out of her mouth in a tangled mix of words. "I hate you, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"Ally—"

"Go ahead, tell me you hate me too. I honestly don't care what you think about me," she added. Just for good measure. She fiddled with what was left of her nails—nail-biting had recently replaced hair-chewing (both were unappetizing)—in a way that she hoped came across as a casual, uncaring manner. The truth was, she _did_ care—she just refused to allow him the satisfaction of knowing that.

But his reply shocked her.

"You know what? I'm not going to argue with you, Ally. I've figured out that it's not worth it anymore, isn't it?" His eyebrows were furrowed into a thick line, but she could see a twinge of hurt glinting in his beautiful hazel eyes.

"Oh, please," she snorted. "I didn't expect anything less. It's not like you ever even cared about my feelings anyway. You never even _liked_ me!"

"Are you crazy? I didn't like you! Ally, I was nearly in flipping _love_ with you, for Christ's sake! It's just that you were too busy being mad at me to notice!" His voice was beginning to rise, but was he going to be yelling louder than her? No.

"Oh, sure, in _love_. Was that why you kissed Brooke, then? Because you were so in _love_ with me?" Ally felt new, hot tears scorching the back of her eyes, and her voice trembled as she attempted—and failed—to stop her bottom lip from wobbling. But she really didn't _care_ anymore. She really just wanted to cry.

She couldn't stop it. All the willpower left in her to fight it drained her body in a matter of seconds; she let the tears spill silently down her cheeks, cooling as they slid off of her face and trickled into the fine hair on the back of her neck. She all let the hurt flow out with them, exposing it for all the world to see, more vulnerable than a beetle under a child's foot.

"Well, news flash, Austin! Do you want to know why I dumped you after that night when you kissed Brooke? It was because I was in love with you too!" She raised a palm to dab furiously at the wetness that drizzled down her face, trying to hold back the wails.

"You think you're always right, don't you?" Austin scoffed. His fingers groped up to his head as he fisted a handful of blonde hair. "But not this time, Miss Ally Know-It-All Dawson! You were _wrong_ about what happened, and you were _wrong_ about _me! _You were _wrong!"_

His voice cracked and he buried his face in his hands. She could tell that he was trying to hide his pain as well, but as he raised his head to speak, she saw that it was etched into every nook and crevice of his face, into the creases under the turned-down corners of his mouth, into his gorgeous, _gorgeous _hazel eyes.

"Because I _never_ kissed Brooke!"

"Denial doesn't work on me!" she yelled. "Why did you kiss me, Austin? Why did you take the time to come here, in the pouring rain, to make absolutely no progress in this relationship? Why is this so _complicated?"_

Ally's knees gave out from under her as she sank down on to the floor, burying her face in her palms and feeling the cool wetness of the tears that still slid silently down her face. She was done. She was done with fighting, she was done with the hurt, she was so done with _him_ that she felt the only thing left to do was tumble down a non-existing rabbit hole, shrink herself into a tiny little stump of a person, and drown in an ocean of her own tears.

Too bad only Alice could do that on a trip to Wonderland.

Curling up into a ball, Ally finally let the sobs she was furiously fighting back escape her lips. She felt her nose clog up with snot and she timidly sniffled, wishing the box of tissues that lay on the piano was in her reach. Wiping at her nose with her tear-soaked hands, she realized just how alone she was in her head, how small she would always be in this big world, and just how horrible it felt to always be controlled by the people that her life revolved around.

And she had never felt more lonely.

She heard Austin heave a deep sigh as he sat down next to her. Normally she would have found it an irritating and unnecessary gesture, but for that moment she couldn't have cared any less; she didn't want to fight with him anymore, and she did her best to push those feelings away. She no longer understood the creature that had just sprung out of her, feeding on an irrational grudge so it could hold up against a war that wasn't worth fighting. Who was that girl? The girl who had been throwing a tantrum over something that had happened months ago?

Deep, deep down, in a despicable part of her she didn't dare explore, she knew that Austin was telling the truth.

She had known this boy for years, she knew him better than anyone else in the universe, and the emotional bond between them was so strong and sturdy that nothing, not even a black, whirling hurricane, could possibly snap it in two. _So why,_ she wondered sadly to herself, _did I even try?_

That bond was what made her realize that Austin would never have kissed Brooke. Brooke had been trailing after him ever since he ended it with her, not noticing—or simply refusing to take—the hints he was leaving that he wasn't interested. Austin Moon was not the new-date-every-week player that fame made him out to be; he would jump in front of a train before purposely wounding Ally's feelings beyond repair. She trusted him enough to know that. And she wanted to fix their fractured bond.

He did, too.

She heard him scoot closer to her, and for a moment she wondered if he was going to start talking again. He didn't. Instead, she felt a pair of strong arms snake around her folded body and push her wet face into his chest as his head came to rest on top of hers. Ally flung her own arms around his neck in defeat and sobbed helplessly into his shirt, still damp from the rain.

It was blissful, to be enveloped completely in this boy's arms; she clung desperately to the warmth and comfort that radiated from his body into her own, chilled to the bone with a mix of drying tears and fresh ones. She just felt numb. There were too many feelings swarming around them that she couldn't explain, and too many that she didn't have to. There was weakness, and guilt, and some anger left over; there was sadness, there was pain, and still there was love. So much love.

Somehow, she found it easier to breathe, despite the tears that still gushed freely down her cheeks; with a little effort, she withdrew her face from Austin's chest and looked up into his eyes. His beautiful hazel eyes. Reaching up a small hand to swipe at her own, wet and bloodshot, she tried to find words to say to him.

"I'm so…" she out worked between sobs, "I'm so _sorry,_ Austin." She did her best to maintain eye contact, but her lashes were wet and heavy with tears, and they dragged her limp eyelids shut. Giving up, she buried her face in his chest again and cried.

She felt a large hand on the back of her head, gently stroking her messy curls as she sobbed.

"Ally…" he whispered. She half expected him to finish his sentence, but her name was followed by a tantalizingly long pause. And then he laughed. "I'm not even sure what to say anymore, Ally. This whole thing is just so _stupid." _

Ally let out a long breath that she felt she'd been holding for the past year. The corners of her lips twitched up into a smile, and then they snapped apart just enough to let the laugh that was digging in her mouth fly free. The laughter, his and her own, met in midair, twisting around each other; both different, but in complete harmony with one another. They laughed and laughed for minutes, hours, possibly several days, until they had laughed all the tears away.

Arms still wrapped around Austin, Ally tossed her head back and let out a happy sigh of relief, feeling like a clean and fresh slate; like a new person. Anything was possible on this happy, happy day! Why were they curled up in a dark, confined room? She wanted to do something, go somewhere, as long as it was with the boy who was holding her tight.

"Austin, " she mumbled blindly, "I want to tell you something."

"And what's that?" he replied, his fingers lacing through her curls.

"I love you."

"I love you more."

"I love you most."

Silence.

Then, after a long pause:

"Impossible."

"Nothing's impossible today."

"Yeah. Except for that."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"I love you."

Then he brought his face down to hers, his lovely hazel eyes meeting her own and his lips brushing her earlobe as he whispered the dreamlike words:

"I love you too."

* * *

**Well folks, this is it.**

**The happily ever after.**

**I'm thinking I might just end it here, but another chapter is also quite possible. It likely won't be posted next Friday, though. If it comes.**

**I couldn't fit it in, but the ****_Hurricane_**** line for this chapter was ****_"And that's when you hold me, you hold me."_**

**I don't own it.**

**Again, I'm sorry for the wait. You probably all hate me.**

**Well, I didn't get my 100 reviews. But it's okay. I realized that the amount of reviews, or follows or favorites doesn't really matter to me anymore. I love writing, and I will continue to write even if no one is encouraging me to do so. My motivation is passionate, sincere, and completely my own, and I don't need it anymore from others.**

**But that doesn't mean you're not welcome to chip in ;)**

**Also, who has an Instagram? Follow me: **

** keep_calm_ship_auslly**

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**Again, sorry! And thank you!**

**~Mia**


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